Ok, turtle makes way more sense. And it's simpler. Occam's Razor or something. Thx bb.

I've never seen it either. I've heard of it though, but only in wealthier areas. Working class people don't have the luxury of deciding to pay extra to alleviate human suffering - it's the same reason walmart consumes all other choices; the average person chooses the cheapest option because they're already scraping by. A more relatable take would be to just opt out of eating at places that demand tips -- I already do that, but only because I can't afford to eat out anyway :)

A waiver for a 260mg drink? A large monster can is close to that. A Bang Energy is 300mg.

Should they be that strong? Up to you to decide. But saying you need a waiver for something that's already widely available is nonsense.

Most of what I see as 'issues' are personal preferences. Stuff like railroaded dialog choices even worse than Fallout 4, or stiff/awkward voice acting, or landing on planets being randomly generated despite claims otherwise. But as for actual issues, two things stood out to me: spaceship flight is very dangerous because bumping into things has a good chance of bugging the physics engine and killing you instantly (but other times, barely even registering damage). And seeing a player get stuck because they got a bounty without even knowing it, and then the bounty was making them shoot-on-sight by guards and them having no clue how to deal with the bounty. I'm sure there's a perfectly simple way out of the situation, but without any communication to the player, that's nothing but frustration. Add in broken NPC pathing/animations (people getting stuck inside objects like bar counters), making it all-too-easy to fall down ladder holes in ships, and horrible performance optimization (with Todd Howard being quoted telling people to just buy better computers), and I think it'll need a bit of polish before really considering giving it a shot.

Well, sure. And Starfield follows in the wake of Fallout 4's lackluster RPG experience, offering shallow conversations and the illusion of choice. After Fallout 4, I'm not sure I can get myself to play another game modeled after the same system of "Would you like a quest? [Yes/Yes but sarcastic/One question first then yes/Maybe later]". If the story is railroaded, Starfield and NMS aren't too different then - there's a main quest line, with things to learn and people to meet, and you check off the boxes until it's done.

But as to whether they should be compared, I think it's unavoidable. There's too much overlap, and no other games like it. Games in which you can customize a space ship, explore thousands of planets, make a home base on any planet you want, and are incentivized to explore and find new places and meet new people? NMS, Starfield, Elite Dangerous, maybe Star Citizen. With some similar gameplay elements and a small pool of games, comparison is natural and expected. Nothing wrong with that.

Fair enough, but there's a difference between reading headlines/articles to make a judgement, and watching actual real-time gameplay for several hours to make a judgement. The only difference was that I wasn't the one holding the controller. If several hours of uninterrupted unedited gameplay isn't enough to make a surface-level observation, I'm not sure what is.

Plus, I was just saying how what I saw made me feel, and I said I'd rather play one game over another. If we want to talk about unnecessarily strong opinions, let's start with you attempting to shut down my honest two cents to reinforce your negative worldview. Let's all be kind to each other, okay? :)

Do you think a "soulslike" is defined by being dark and gritty? I find it odd that you think the inclusion of anything cute or hopeful/friendly would be only a negative. Maybe your preferences are for dark and gritty only, but I assure you that many people enjoy other styles. There's a charm to there being hope in a dying world, isn't there?

Besides, I'd say most people define "soulslike" by their gameplay, not aesthetics. Maybe the "git gud" fragile-masculinity crowd needs their unforgiving combat system paired with a dark, 'masculine' atmosphere to fulfill their power fantasy, but again, I assure you that many other types of people enjoy those games - especially Elden Ring, which has much broader appeal than the previous souls games.

I'll wager you're a toxic "git gud" type that hinges their identity on these types of games, and that's why the idea of your sacred icon being blemished by comparison to Soulframe upsets you so much. I really can't see why else anyone would be this angry over a game not being to their preferences. If people enjoy something different than you, let them. :)